


Dean Dreams, Too

by ysse_writes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-12
Updated: 2011-09-12
Packaged: 2017-10-23 16:45:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ysse_writes/pseuds/ysse_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean dreams, too.</p><p>Previously untitled ficlet for aerie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dean Dreams, Too

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Kripke et al and CW own everything.

Dean dreams, too.

Six years old and he dreams of flames, of his mother — dead, of dark shapes and dark hands reaching.

Six years old and already he knows better than to scream.

Sometimes he dreams of her in sunlight, hair golden and shining, almost blinding against the green green grass as she laughs and throws him high in the air, hands soft and sure as they catch him on the way down. Her hands are warm as they press his hands to the hard bulge of her stomach, their giggles mixing each time Sammy-in-her-tummy kicks, tickling her insides the way her laughter tickles his palms. “He can’t wait to meet you,” she’d say, “he knows he has the best big brother in the world.” He’d hug her and they’d lie together like that, drowsy and sleepy, her heartbeat and the baby’s in sync, pulsing through him, a rhythmic lullaby.

The first time, he woke up crying, afraid, missing his mother like a punch to his chest. His father was there in an instant. Holding him, shushing him, telling him to be quiet. “You’ll wake Sammy,” Dad said. “If he hears you crying he’ll cry, too. He’ll be scared.” Sure enough, Sammy woke up, started crying, didn’t stop until Dean stopped, until Dean climbed up on the other motel bed and rocked him back to sleep. Now they sleep together— it’s easier that way.

Sammy whimpers, and Dean knows he’s dreaming, too. So Dean kisses him on the forehead and cuddles him close, until he quiets down, scrunched-up face smoothing out, relaxing.

Sammy smells like their Mom, like milk, like baby wash and talcum powder, and Dean remembers the first time she put a wriggling Sammy in his arms. “You won’t drop him,” she assured him, smiling. “You’re his big brother and you’ll take good care of him. Look, he knows it, too,” and he’d looked down to see Sammy looking up at him with rapt attention. Dad put Sammy in his arms that night, and trusts him to keep his brother safe when he goes out to hunt.

Dean never cried again, not after that first time, not even when he’s hungry or cold, or when Dad leaves them alone in the dark to chase some shadow Dean never wants to look at too closely. Dean dreams, too. But he’s not the baby, he’s not Sammy. He’s Sammy’s big brother. So he only holds Sammy closer, blinking the dreams and the tears away.

 

 

Dean dreams, too.

Nineteen years old and they’re on a job, not that that’s anything new. Reports of a poltergeist in a nearby college and it turns out that some dying old man is being harassed by the ghost of his old girlfriend, trying to trick him into coming with her. Only the old man is –pardon the pun, he says—dead set on waiting till his wife comes for him. Seems the man and his wife had a fight before she died and the dead ex-girlfriend is claiming that the wife isn’t coming, that she doesn’t, _never_ in fact, loved him and the fact that she’s here means he made a mistake all those years ago, that she’s the _one_ , not the wife. Only the old man is having none of it, and demands that they get rid of her. He’s not going, he says, not if his Merle isn’t coming for him and that’s that. He’s a silly stubborn man, being haunted by a silly stupid ghost, but it’s a job and they find few enough jobs where the client, for want of a better word, is willing to pay. Besides, Dad says, she’s evil, no matter how innocuous she may seem, no better than a siren or a succubus, who knows what she plans to do with his soul once she gets her hands on it.

Investigating, Dean pretends to be a student and now he’s trapped in a walk-in closet with the man’s oldest daughter, also on the faculty, and who is also targeted by the ghost, most likely for the fact that she bears a striking resemblance to and shares her mother’s name. “So,” Merle says, and this would so be Dean’s fantasy –trapped with a hot somewhat-older woman— except Merle already has a girlfriend and had laughed kindly and patted him on the head the one time he hinted that he’d be amenable to a threesome, “you’re, what, a sophomore? I haven’t seen you around campus before. Decided on a major yet?”

“I’m not really a student,” he confesses. “I mean, not just here, I’m not a student anywhere.”

“Why not?” she demands.

He doesn’t answer, shrugs as if he doesn’t care, isn’t interested, but Merle turns out to be one of those crazy pushy teachers, the kind that uses words like ‘actualizing potential’ and ‘finding your niche.’

Later, after the ghost is gone and before they leave, she pulls him aside and thrusts a sheaf of paper into his hands. “Look,” she says, “I know your family situation isn’t… ideal… and most likely your schooling has been non-traditional, but there are other options. I saw that thing you made, that makeshift laser. These are applications for design scholarships. Or, if you like, I could help you get into a mentoring program.”

The pages feel heavy, solid, in his hands, and he thinks about how he once thought, maybe, that it would be cool to study engineering. He knows machines; he’s been in love with his Dad’s Impala forever, and his Dad has more or less given it to him, seeing as how he’s mostly doing all the driving these days, and how he’s practically rebuilt the engine more than once. He knows every inch of her, has intimate knowledge of every gasket, every gauge, could probably recognize this car from a dark mile-wide parking lot on a moonless night from the smell alone. And more than that, he can build things – things like EMP detectors and catapults from odds and ends. He’s not as smart as Sam and there’s no way they could have afforded it, but he’d thought, once, maybe, that he had a shot at a baseball scholarship, or maybe one for martial arts or some other sport that involved any sort of weaponry. And hell, since he was dreaming anyway, maybe a little apartment and a pretty girl to share it with.

Sammy is getting bigger, getting stronger, and Sammy’s getting to be really good at hunting. Couple more years and he’ll be even better than Dean, maybe. Dad and Sammy could do it without him, Dean’s sure.

But Sammy is the smart one, and Sammy is going to be a lawyer. Sammy declares this with confidence, none of the maybes that keep flashing through Dean’s head. Dad and Sammy fight about it all the time, Dad shouting that if Sammy goes he better stay gone and Sammy shouting back _hell, yeah_. Sammy wants a different life, wants to fight a different kind of evil, and Dean knows Sammy could do it. Dean could never leave Dad anyway, not alone, and despite the fights Dean knows Sammy won’t either. Sammy will never have his chance, his shot at a normal life, if Dean takes his.

Dean dreams, too. But he’s not the smart one, he’s not Sammy. So he thanks Merle politely, like his Mommy taught him, and then, once she’s out of sight, he stuffs the pages into the nearest recycling bin.

 

 

Dean dreams, too.

Twenty-six years old and he faces death everyday, cheating it so often that even a cat would have been envious.

There are nights when he dreams about his Mom, reaching for him, telling him not to be afraid. He’s lying dead, torn apart by some nameless thing, his blood a dark pattern on the floor and walls, the flames already rising.

He wakes up shivering, finding that he’s already on his feet and standing over Sam, asleep on the next bed, safe.

Safe for now.

Dean never sleeps for more than a few hours -sometimes no more than a few minutes- anymore, and always with a gun under his pillow. He takes it out now, a comforting weight, and moves to the chair. He takes one of Sam’s books with him – if Sam wakes up he can pretend he’s reading – but really he’s guarding his brother’s sleep.

It’s not the remembered pain of his dream-evisceration that makes Dean want to scream, not the idea of dying that frightens him the most, that makes him want to puke. It’s the memory of that _thing_ in his dream stepping over his body and moving on. Moving on to Sam.

No. No, Dean thinks, _no_. Never going to happen. He is not going to die. He is not going to leave Sammy to fight the dark alone. Nothing is getting to his baby brother, ever. They’d have to go through him first and _nothing_ is ever going to get through him.

Dean dreams, too. But it doesn’t matter what they are, how often he has them. He’s not the psychic, he’s not Sammy, and his dreams don’t mean anything.

 

 

 

©JCSA/2006


End file.
